Cyclone Nargis, which pounded central Myanmar over the weekend leaving at least tens of thousand people dead and the country's largest city paralysed, may force the ruling junta to rethink their plans to hold a referendum next Saturday.
The referendum on May 10 will decide the fate of Myanmar's new constitution, a document that promises to cement the military's dominant role in the country's politics following the next general election scheduled some time in 2010. In any other country, the postponement of a national vote would be inevitable after such a devastating natural disaster, but Myanmar, also called Burma, has not obeyed international norms for decades.
The cyclone, which slammed into Myanmar's central coastal states Friday night packing 200 kilometres per hour winds, has left Yangon's fragile infrastructure in shambles and claimed hundreds of lives in the Irrawaddy Division, Myanmar's rice bowl.
Up to 100,000 may have been left homeless by the storm, many more are roofless and Yangon, a city of several million inhabitants, is likely to be without electricity for weeks. "It's a catastrophe," said one western diplomat. "Almost all the electricity poles were blown down. It will take weeks to repair. I don't see how you can conduct a referendum under those conditions."
Given Myanmar's limited budget and poor past performance in disaster management, there is a high likelihood that millions of people will have more pressing matters on their minds than the referendum come Saturday. But that may not stop Senior General Than Shwe, Myanmar's military supremo who heads the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) - as the ruling junta has styled itself - from pushing the referendum through.
It was Than Shwe who set the referendum date for May 10, and only Than Shwe can decide to postpone it. "Than Shwe is very stubborn, and it's very important for him to hold the referendum by this date. He will not postpone it unless he sees no other option," predicted Win Min, a lecturer on Myanmar affairs at Chiang Mai University, in neighbouring Thailand.
Than Shwe chose the May 10 date because it was "an auspicious date" and because it has allowed little time for opponents to organise campaigns against the referendum, said Win Min.
Now Than Shwe will need to decide whether the stars have spoken against his divine plan. "Many people are saying this (cyclone) is a bad omen for the regime, and punishment for their crackdown on Buddhist monks last September," said Win Min. On September 26 to 27, Myanmar's junta unleashed its troops on hundreds of Buddhist monks who had led anti-government protests in Yangon, sending thugs to beat and round up the protectors of Myanmar's national religion.
The brutal onslaught, that left at least 31 dead, enraged Myanmar's predominantly Buddhist population against their rulers and drew harsh criticism from the international community. In was partly in response to that growing pressure that Than Shwe in February announced plans to hold a referendum that will decide on the country's new constitution and ultimately pave the way for a general election in 2010.
The constitution, however, holds little promise for true democracy in Myanmar, a country that has been ruled by the military since 1962. The referendum itself has been condemned by human rights groups for being neither free nor fair, but rather being held amid widespread repression, media censorship, bans on political gatherings, the lack of an independent referendum commission and courts to supervise the vote, and a pervasive climate of fear.